Type 21
The Type 21 is an United Kingdom Frigate that first appears in Wargame: Red Dragon. History The Type 21 class was a series of eight frigates commissioned by the Royal Navy in the latter half of the 1970's. Under budget pressures, the Royal Navy had accepted proposals for the vessels to be privately designed, in contrast to the then-standard practice of the RN designing its own ships. The eventual results were mixed. The ships integrated a number of new technologies, including gas-turbine engines and the Computer Assisted Action Information System (CAAIS), as well as much improved on-board crew accommodations. However, the class experienced severe cost-overruns over the course of procurement, and the basic design proved to be somewhat top-heavy due to the pairing of advanced systems with a commercially-designed hull. Additionally, the use of aluminum for the ship's superstructures, necessary to keep the topside weight down, resulted in serious hull cracking issues that required repair over the course of service. Seven of the eight ships of the class took part in the 1982 Falklands War, seeing extensive action, and taking the brunt of Argentine air attacks. Two vessels of the class, the HMS Ardent and the HMS Antelope, were sunk by bombs from Argentine A-4 Skyhawks. The remaining vessels persisted in RN services until the early 1990's, whereupon they were sold to Pakistan, which continues to operate five of the class. Overview The Type 21 is a low-tier Command vessel available to BLUFOR. It possesses modest anti-surface capabilities, but has negligible ability to engage aerial targets, as well as having an absolutely atrocious CIWS suite. Its high vulnerability to anti-ship aircraft makes it largely unsuitable for independent actions, but in fleet actions its command ship status can draw fire from more important vessels, and the potent 114mm gun makes it an excellent choice to complement ships carrying the lighter 76mm armament, or for shore bombardment duties. The vessel is armed with a single 114mm gun, mounted forward, with four forward-facing Exocet missiles directly behind. A single Sea Cat anti-aircraft missile launcher is mounted to the rear of the superstructure. Additionally, four 20mm cannon are mounted amidships, two per side. The traverse of these weapons is unclear, but they would seem to be less than 180 degrees. The 114mm gun carries a sizable punch, dealing 7 HE damage, but possesses a mediocre rate of fire. With only one gun, the Type 21 is somewhat disadvantaged when contrasted with the two large-caliber guns on the Najin class, or the four on the Luda, but the BLUFOR vessel does have higher gun accuracy than either of its REDFOR competitors, and carries a substantial amount of ammunition. As the only gun is mounted on the bow of the ship, unlike its multi-gunned REDFOR competitors, it is important to keep the vessel pointed toward the enemy during gun duels. Complementing the gun armament is a quartet of anti-ship missiles. While all the missile containers are forward facing, they are still fired one at a time, though all four may be released in quick succession. This, combined with the low accuracy of the missiles, means that the Type 21 has little chance of penetrating entrenched CIWS defenses, but may suffice against individual ships with light anti-missile defenses. In addition to the Exocets, thirty-two Sea Cat missiles are carried. With a range of 2100m, this weapon is effectively useless against aircraft and helicopters, unless the opponent is inattentive or inexperienced enough to fly close to the vessel. The weapon finds its main use as an anti-missile defense, providing local short-range protection. In this role, the missiles are controversial at best. The main issue is that as they are situated at the back of a the vessel, so firstly, the superstructure sometimes gets in the way, and on top of this, the missiles, with their short range, are put at even more of a disadvantage when they have to fly past the 100 m vessel just to intercept a missile heading towards it, which in turn is further hindered by the fact that Sea Cat is unbelievably slow. This can lead to the misinterpretation that the missiles are significantly less accurate than they actually are, simply because by the time it detects an incoming asm, launches, and reaches the front of the ship, the asm, has either hit, or is about to, resulting in the sea cat losing its target, making it fly off in a random direction. As such, if you really want the type 21 to be useful as an anti-missile ship, either make it turn away from incoming threats, or put it on its side if you want to keep its main gun and 2 30 mm guns in use as well. All that being said, whilst sea cat may be poor from an offensive point of few, as the ship can't sail towards its target, fire its harpoons and properly intercept incoming missiles at the same time, it is quite capable when defending, or when retreating, as several BLUFOR ships have weak rear defences (OHP SM-1 can't fire backwards, neither can the AA missiles, or the phalanxes on the Hatsuyuki, on top of this the PO-Hang loses the use of half its guns, leaving only the Kongo, and the Laffy as alternative choices that can fire backwards when retreating, and if you are in a position where you have to retreat, the laffy, with its low missile count, will probably have run out of ammo..) Worthy of further note is the vessel's speed, which exceeds many other BLUFOR or REDFOR ships. This advantage is largely moot when under attack by missiles or aircraft, but it does potentially allow the Type 21 to disengage from unfavorable gun duels, and may permit a degree of strategic mobility on naval-only maps. Weapons Category:Red Dragon vessels